


Canonization

by tuathafaerie (Belphoebe)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance, Sasuke is an interesting character but not in a relationship with Sakura, anti-sasuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belphoebe/pseuds/tuathafaerie
Summary: Kakashi always had a feeling that the Uchihas’ former possessions were happier with him. When the wife of the last one standing comes running to him, he knows it.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Canonization

**Author's Note:**

> Found some of my old fic that I thought was lost, so I am posting it again. Also as I recall I was listening to a lot of Muse at the time I wrote this, so I made it a personal challenge to slip as many of their lyrics in as I could.

Kakashi had a bad habit of stealing things. Or maybe just taking them. It could have even been called accepting gifts, really. After all, it was only polite to take what was practically offered to you.

What ever the means, he had over the years acquired a small collection of items from the Uchiha clan. A funky looking fan propped up on his shelf, a book on the history of the clan in Konoha that kept his bedside table steady, those sharp imprinted kunai someone had left behind at an ANBU meeting strapped comfortably at his thigh, a small second hand figurine that he'd heard rumored to belong to Itachi waving with a weasels face at any who entered his door, and last but not least the eye that remained closed behind his hitai-ate.

He had never meant for his collection to grow to the size it did - hadn't really even meant to start the pile of items at all - it had just happened. Kakashi, being who he was, and feeling that perhaps Orbito's final friendship had triggered some kind of magnet inside him for the stuff, merely let the ensuring stream simply settle at his doorstep. It wasn't as if they were all that returnable after all, most of their owners were now unable to receive them back, and in fact most of what he had picked up was actually useful. Just little things that he employed around the house and with work.

The copy ninja had always had a feeling that the Uchihas' former possessions were happier with him now than collecting dust elsewhere.

That was what he had guessed, at least, until three months prior, when he had opened up his door to the sound of soft tapping on a rainy night and found the most recent thing to float his way.

Now he knew it.

Kakashi took one more measuring look at his painfully vacant bed, donned his flak jacket, and set out to abduct the first thing he had ever truly wanted to rob the Uchiha of.

* * *

" _Sing to me," she commanded, and he fought a smile at her melodious, pert edict as she ruled the small kingdom of his kitchen perched from his table. Her wet hair hung loosely down her back, soaking his old shirt and seeping into the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders._

" _I'm a poor singer, Sakura," he replied, taking her numb hands and forcing them around a cup of steaming tea. After cleaning up in his bathroom, she looked only slightly better than a drowned cat. "Drink up before you catch cold."_

_He plunked down in a wobbly chair, set his crossed legs up beside her, and pushed back, balancing deftly from experience as she sipped quietly at the tea clutched in her fingers. A familiar orange book framed his face immediately._

_The pink haired waif spent several moments in silence, finishing the warm cure-all, before staring down at the dregs._

" _Tell me a story," she said calmly, revealing nothing of the fortune she read at the bottom of her cup._

_Obligingly, he began reading aloud. "'...and swept Yoshi up into his arms. "Darling," he said, "I tried to give you up, but I'm addicted." "Oh, Masashi!" she cried, and they fell together to the feather bed, unmindful that her lord husband would soon be home, and shedding clothes as fast as any...' ahem..." He trailed off, squinting at the page before him. Some of Jiraiya's better work, but this was regrettably not his best audience._

_The girl sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin, however, showed no disgust, just a kind of heartbreaking apathy. She was a stringed puppet with no master and legs that had forgotten how to walk. Her green eyes stared at his dark one as if he were her last hope in an ocean full of despair._

" _Kiss me," she begged, and the plea was almost desperate. "Make me believe in happy endings again."_

* * *

Barely locking his door behind him, Kakashi walked at a brisker pace than usual down the street, his customary book still inches from his nose as he dodged passerby and road obstacles as if with an acute sixth sense.

He'd done it, obliged her that night after some necessary hesitation. Sakura's desolate expression finally overcame his better reason and he lifted her chin gently and brushed his masked lips against hers. She'd let out a small, satisfied sigh and curled up in the blanket on his table to sleep, entirely unaware of the lightning down his spine that his own element was unable to defend against. Forcing himself to dismiss it, he had been unable to keep his eye from drifting off the pages of his novel and to that delicate flower scattered carelessly over his furniture.

Had she known that he would give in? Naruto, though he still pined after her, would never have acceded to her wishes. He'd have sent her home with a tight friendly hug and an encouraging word or two. That's just the kind of person he was. Kakashi could not pretend to be so gentlemanly. He'd dance with a girl at her wedding and then kiss her without pretense of purely friendship less than a year and a half later. Had Sakura realized this as she tempted him with adultery?

Idly, he wondered if Sasuke had even known his wife was missing that night.

* * *

" _Buck up, it'll get better," he said as he tugged her collar into place the following morning on his doorstep._ _He mussed her long hair as she grinned tremulously back up at him, then watched her walk away with her spine straight once more._

_The usual spring in her step was missing, he realized suddenly_ , _but hopefully it would be back soon enough._

_With that thought in mind, he managed to push his worries away and return to life before her midnight interruption._

_They were not so easy to dismiss the next time he saw her, in the grocery store. She was picking out meals for two, carefully sticking to a list clutched in her hand, and was the vision of a perfect, loving wife. Her eyes, however, gave her away when she glanced up at the row of mustard spices again. Dark rims gave her the look of an exhausted raccoon._

_He, by some amount of stalking, managed to step behind her in the check out lane. "Doing okay?" he asked casually, laying a small pint of milk and a bag of apples on the counter._

_She glanced up from her purse and smiled faintly in greeting, but it was a smile that made her mouth appear sprained from even attempting it and that contrasted the expression in her eyes only more. "Fine, thanks. And yourself?"_

" _Oh, I've probably been better," he replied, tilting his head in blatant skepticism and invitation for her to tell him the truth._

_Nodding and ignoring this unspoken request, she laid the bills on the counter, waited for the change, then thanked the cashier. "I'll see you around, then." The bags were swept up, dangling from her once strong arms, and then she was gone._

_When he asked Naruto later, the blond said only that Sakura had pleaded headache the last few times he had visited the Uchiha compound and had gone to her room._

* * *

He glanced up when he thought he heard someone call his name, peering out over the top of his book. Kurenai was across the street, her red eyes smiling as she held the hand of her young boy and they both waved. Out of custom, Kakashi lifted a hand in greeting back before they passed each other without an exchanged word.

If Asuma's widowed love knew where he was going, she did not stop him. He took that as omitted approval and didn't let his step falter.

After he had met Sakura in the grocery store, they had gone through a phase like that. Their betrayal was gradual, after all, a foot in the door process, so for nearly a month they had simply greeted one another, he taking in her ragged, almost haggard appearance with unnatural aplomb and she silently dismissing his concern with her forced smiles and platitudes. The one time he had reached out and taken her arm, she had flinched so hard that he didn't dare do it again, and so he treated his once former student and teammate as if she were a distant acquaintance that he was not concerned about.

This attitude, unfortunately, had failed him when he had spotted her hastily drawing up her collar to conceal deepening bruises around her neck, and he'd stopped Sakura abruptly to give her his most intimidating stare while he told her that maybe she "should stay with Ino for a few nights."

She'd drawn back like a recoiling spring, told him that "maybe it was none of his business!", and marched unsteadily past him and into the corner pharmacy.

And that, Kakashi had thought, was the end of his brilliant student, Sakura. The Queen of the superficial.

But he had been wrong.

* * *

_He came home that night rather late, after enjoying the evening out with Genma and Gai over at their customary table. There might have been some alcohol in his system, but it was not enough to promote the vision sitting numbly on his front stoop._

_A pink head rose at his footsteps and he stopped just in time to catch the green gaze as it met and held his. They stared at one another for a long time._

_Then, without words, he opened the door and ushered her inside._

_Though her presence was certainly the last thing he had expected, he asked no questions, merely got her a pair of old pajamas and a blanket for the couch. She had thanked him with a face devoid of all expression and then marched imperially to the bathroom._

_The water ran for a full five minutes before it choked out abruptly to the sound of some kind of elephant lumbering into the wall. At least, that's what he assumed it was from the sickening crunch and moan his tiles made right before they flattened the water pipe. One jaded dark eye turned to his kitchen faucet, which had begun a steady drip from the unreleased pressure, but he supposed he should be relieved that the damage was relatively - or so he hoped - minimal. The Sakura from two years ago probably could have brought an entire house down with one well aimed punch._

_It took him another ten minutes of silence before he decided that, yes, he'd better investigate. A few light raps had heralded his arrival to the bathroom door. "Sakura? Feeling better?"_

_There was no answer. So, with a frown, he tried the door, only to have it open slowly, to reveal his shower whimpering piteously through a newly formed hole, rubble and a fine coat of dust littering his floor, and Sakura standing completely naked before his mirror. She was barely inches away from it and her eyes were self critical, but they were streaming water that could not have come from his showerhead. Like the floor, she was covered in dust, but blossoms of blue and snakes of purple played obligate tattletale to her situation._

_Either her performance as a ninja was down to a perilously poor level, or Sakura's marriage was deteriorating._

_She glanced at him once, her gaze drifting along the mirror until she found him, and he could think of nothing to say to alleviate her pain. He was a shinobi, not a nursemaid and not a counselor. You dealt with pain in only one of two ways: you found a professional to fix you, or you ignored it._

_The latter was all he could offer._

_With a quiet sigh, he took her arm, grabbed a towel, and led her feeble footsteps to the kitchen sink. There, he calmly wet and rinsed the towel as she numbly removed the last traces of her temper. After she was clean once more, he pushed her firmly towards his bedroom with the pajamas her hands._

_When she'd come out, fully dressed, she'd plopped again on his kitchen table and sent a wide eyed gaze to the apple he plucked out of his pantry, the only edible thing in there, and offered. After a moment, the green eyes shot to his face, and for the first time that evening he noticed just a spark of feeling._

" _Why?"_

" _You looked thin," was his practical reply._

_But she did not blush at the reason he had noticed this. Instead, an arm came up and her mouth twisted in slight frustration. "That's not what I meant. Why are you being so kind?"_

" _Why not?"_

" _Well," she tried again, her brow lowering a bit, "I was always yelling at you for being irresponsible, I think I managed to destroy seven of your books, and I just put a hole in your wall!"_

_He decided not to mention the eighth orange book that she had somehow lit on fire and then decided to blame its ashes on Naruto. After all, years had past since his students had tried to punish him for being late._ _Instead, he only held out the apple once more. "Because you were my student and my teammate, and everybody has their faults."_

_By the look on her face, those were words she hadn't heard in a long time. She was silent for a significant moment, then reached out a trembling hand and took the fruit, brought it back to her lap, dropped it, and grabbed him. And, as her touch sparked a thunderstorm in his body and her lips were begging him to please, please remind her of her good traits as well, he gave in._

_They fell without heed to caution or consequence._

_The dawn the next morning was red, and the sky was burning, but Sakura was curled up against his chest with a smile on her pink stained lips, and Kakashi was not looking out his window._

* * *

He remembered that following day with a great deal of clarity, and unconsciously his pace increased, turning the corner of one dry Konoha street to stride down another.

The emotions had been fast, the regrets a bit slower, but they tangled into a large, unrecognizable mass of writhing heaviness at the bottom of his stomach as light hands had traced the dark patches on her body.

"I picked a fight." And he had looked up to see Sakura awake if sleepily resting against the arms that were crossed over his torso. Her wry grimace had offered little comfort and the "why?" he'd asked in response went unanswered.

"If he doesn't look worse than this, you lost," Kakashi had said finally, deciding to draw his own conclusions. That his pink haired student had resorted to violence against her once adored husband was unsettling, and the chilling possibility that they would be facing a rogue Sasuke again was not welcome.

Sakura had only let her smile dip sadly as she pulled her limbs into herself and withdrew from his body. "I'd have lost anyway." Then she was sliding away from the bed, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around herself, and moving to the bathroom to collect her dirty clothes.

She had made it all the way to the front door, her outfit rumpled but on and her shoulders set in a stubborn but depressed slump, before he simply scooped her up again and carted her back to his bedroom, regrets be damned. If he was going to be forced to dream of her form arching wonderfully beneath his for the rest of his life, she was going to know that their brief affair had been no momentary lapse of reason on his part. He had returned her that evening on her protest, but it had been Ino's house he had stood outside until the blond welcomed her best friend inside.

His shower had been fixed before she had the courage to look him in the eye on the street. Just enough time to allow the hint of dark rumors to drift his way.

So when she finally did, he didn't let her drop that gaze until she'd agreed to visit him again.

* * *

" _We shouldn't be doing this." She sat on his balcony, legs slipped between the railings as they hung over the edge and arms gripping the bars. Her eyes were fixed on the distant starlight above._

_He only pushed the curtains over slightly as he turned from his position, reclined against the wall inside his kitchen with the handy overhead lights with which to read by. It had been pleasant listening to her even breathing and catching up on the latest chapter, and he was sorry to have been interrupted. "Do you want to stop?"_

_She laid her forehead on the cool metal before her and spoke quietly. "Why don't you?"_

_A dark eye watched the girl with the warring heart critically. She was a map of the promblematique, and he was pushing himself to decode all her sinuous twists and turns. He had known it would be difficult since he met her, had known inherently because she was a girl and he just did not understand anything female, had not bothered to his entire life, but the prize inside this cryptex had blossomed into a garden of temptation that he could not resist. The book in his hands came down to rest against his lap as he turned his attention fully towards her. "Sakura, you should realize that the situation we're in is one I couldn't pass up. It's not everyday that a teacher actually sleeps with one of his students."_

" _Pervert," she huffed back automatically, but her lips were twisted in the prettiest of smirks as she leaned back her head and met his unwounded expression upside down. "Your former student," she reminded._

_The shrug of his shoulders was gentle, and just barely visible through the door. "Then another man's wife."_

_She stilled, let her face become studiously blank, then gave up and sighed. Her back swept softly to the ground and she stared up at heaven so far away. "We shouldn't be doing this." And her voice was heavy as she repeated her solemn intonation._

_Like a dark moon, he leaned out and eclipsed her view of the stars, his mask already down and the expression on his mouth open for her interpretation. "Then why aren't you with your husband?"_

_There was no protest as his head lowered to meet hers._

* * *

He had never asked how she found the time to meet with him, what she told Sasuke to explain her absence. Hadn't because he had never needed to know - had only needed the results - and he had a feeling that Sasuke wasn't really watching over his wife as closely as he should be anyway. Sakura only spent half of the time she slipped away with the copy ninja.

She gained ten pounds in a month and a half, obviously ignoring the grocery list in favor of her liberal decisions, and Kakashi was proud. She pushed herself to train with the Ino-Shika-Cho trio and her best friend was happy. The next time she punched his shower wall - and he hoped very much that she didn't discover promptings for a repeat performance - there would be little left of the room to preserve her modesty. If she continued, she would be back to Tsunade's demolishing standards in no time at all.

"You're late."

Kakashi looked down as he turned the last corner, letting his eyebrow raise as he deftly dodged stepping on Pakkun, instead continuing to his objective. The little dog obligingly began trotting by his side. "Would you believe me if I said it wasn't on purpose?"

"Maybe," the pug said ungraciously. This wasn't the time for chitchat after all.

Like a kicked puppy, his master sighed heavily and over dramatically as they pulled to a stop outside a large walled enclosure. The wooden doors were easily imposing, but they were not enough to stop his hand from shooting up and opening the latch without knocking. He ignored the kanji inscribed "Uchiha" entirely.

* * *

_Her green eyes were sporting that wild look, and so he repeated the question in an effort to make sure she hadn't misunderstood him. "Do you want to stay?"_

" _Are you kidding me?" she asked back, her tone so tight and so violent that he had to fight the urge to tell her that she'd imagined him saying anything at all. But he remembered what he had sniffed out earlier that week, and he knew by now that the first kiss this young woman dragged him into whenever they were alone together was always one of welcome relief and not just hello - and he was becoming rather desperately tired of being her escape first and lover second - so he slowly shook his head._

" _I'm not."_

_Her knuckles cracked, he braced himself, and then her face decided that it was tired of this charade and let it all go. Every emotion possible flashed through her features, like a rolling slot machine set in a tizzy whirl, but she finally settled on one of grim decline. If she gambled, she would lose. "I can't."_

_Tilting his head, he denied her that option. "That's not what I asked."_

_There was a feral growl as she scowled and firmed her fists again. "I don't think you understand, old man!"_

_He narrowed his eye, took a chance, and snatched her hands up and away from certain intended harm. They knocked together above her head as he leaned down to match her eye level. "I don't think you know your grammar, little girl."_

_She jerked at her hands, spit maledictions in his face, and finally sagged, exhausted, into his hard won grip._

_Softly, he pressed his cool hitai-ate against her forehead. "Sakura. " Her gaze unwillingly rose to his, and this time he saw everything she was unwilling to admit._ _Anger was mixed strongly with longing, overridden by fear, and shadowed by doubt. And throughout it all the underlying current of affection and gratefulness, that she loved him for wanting her even with all her faults. Gently, he moved a little closer, unwilling to release her wrists in order to caress her cheek. "I want you to want to stay, but I won't stop you from leaving. Your decisions are your decisions. I refuse to let you go, but I will not be your captor."_

_Eventually, she nodded in acceptance of this fact, her hands relaxing, and he released her to stand back with a smile lifting the edge of his eye._

" _So, do you want to stay?" Because he would never offer if it was not possible, if he did not think there was a way to solve her problems, so her assertion of "I can't" had been entirely wrong. She had to believe she could, or he would never be able to prove her right._

_The struggle was visible on her face, but eventually she gave in to the truth, knowing that their time was running out even if she was not ready to accept it. Nodding, she responded tiredly. "Yes, I want to stay."_

* * *

Various buildings inside the Uchiha compound were passed by without a second look. He already knew where to go. After all, it was a common thing to scout information about your enemy before you released an offensive. Two silent figures stopped before the largest of the buildings with barely a stir of grass, before Kakashi was waving to the smallest member of his pack. "You know what to do."

"Don't get yourself killed," the dog replied, pulling himself up to the porch and running off to the side of the house, where he jumped a few boxes, pushed himself up and over a window sill, then began obediently trotting up the stairs.

The white haired jounin, raising his headband, made his way to the back of the building, quietly opened the lock on the door, and let himself in. Moving rapidly through the house, he was struck immediately by the weight of the air, a kind of depression that permeated and proliferated until it became a tangible illness. It was as if the entire house itself had been struck by desolation and, no matter how much you encouraged and willed it to recover and thrive again, it had only the ability to beg apocalypse please. They should not have kept it, Sasuke should have buried it with his brother in ashes and smoke, but instead he had lifted his bride over the doorway and into the arms of despair. The mental health of the hyperchondriatic house was more important than Sakura's.

When the sound of moans began to hum through the halls, he knew he had found what he had come for. He slowed his pace, opened the holster on his leg, and made his way to the one room Sakura had probably never wanted to see.

In a mirror hanging on the right wall of the room he was approaching, dark eyes met his for one surprised instant, and Kakashi couldn't keep the satisfaction from his expression. His timing, for once, had been perfect, and he halted just inside the entrance to watch this dark Lilith clutch her shadowy lover, ignoring the fact that he was playing a twisted David and Bathsheba of his own. After all, he had known when Sakura had first come to him that he was no saint, had suspected that to be included in her reasons for turning to him, and the appearance of that fallen angel could not canonize him.

Instead, he simply waited, as the woman's muffled exclamations of alarm alerted the man with her to the intrusion. A head with bird like hair lifted, then inclined towards the door. "Kakashi."

"Sasuke," he returned, just as simply and just as chilled, propped against the doorframe with his arms crossed as if he had not a care in the world.

The young man met his mismatched eyes with a reddish pair of his own. Sasuke had gained strength since he had been a part of team seven, but had lost his sense of compassion. Sometimes, his former teacher wondered if he knew that Itachi had succeeded in killing at least that part of him, and if he even cared anymore that it was missing. "What do you want before I throw you out?"

He was almost tempted to return with a "what you obviously don't" or "everything of value in your home" but he managed to remember tact, remember that in this game of live chess what mattered was that you won, not that you taunted your opponent, and so he settled for a direct answer. "Sakura. That's all."

Red pinwheeled eyes spun for a second before stilling. "She's barren."

Kakashi only shrugged, as if saying that it didn't matter. Because it didn't, it shouldn't have. Her inability to produce a child within their first year of marriage should not have affected her husband's devotion to her, should not have morphed Sakura's dying infatuation into self hatred, but Sasuke had houses begging to be filled, and they cried for relief every time he walked past them, in this compound he should have burnt. His imperfect Eve could not help him rebuild his former life, she had failed in her purpose to repopulate his world, and so he had found a fertile Lilith that would birth him hundreds and let him pretend that his life hadn't irrevocably changed that day he had come home to see his parents murdered in this house.

But perhaps Sasuke knew his heart had been focused to only one purpose. "She's been going to you, hasn't she?" he asked, completely neutral, completely uncaring. It had been discrete, and he knew his pride wasn't hurt as much as it could have been. If it had been Naruto she had clung to, it was less likely that he would have taken the revelation calmly, but Kakashi knew how to keep his mouth closed, and when playing second fiddle for the benefit of village was for the best. Eventually, people forgot, and Sakura would be happier with a temporarily broken reputation and freedom than a violent confrontation that left all of them targets for unkind gossip.

"That woman's pregnant already, isn't she?" Kakashi asked back in favor of replying with the obvious answer. Pakkun's nose had sniffed it out before, but he wouldn't mind some verbal confirmation. "You'd want to divorce Sakura to make your heir legitimate."

"You'd take her then?" Sasuke asked, his tone slightly more dangerous, and the woman beneath him mewed disturbed protest as his grip on her arms tightened.

The mismatched eyes held the sharingan without flinching, then slid to the mirror and the woman still within. "If she'll have me." He would love her, not imprison her in another relationship.

The Uchiha head remained focused on his former teacher for only a moment longer, as if sensing the extent of his intent, before firmly turning his back and demonstrating how much of a threat he thought this former ANBU was. Which, considering his defeat of Itachi and his even match of level with Naruto, probably wasn't too much of an egotistical move. "Then take her," he dismissed, clearly ending the matter. Whether it was for his own motives or Sakura's happiness was never revealed.

At the door, the jounin bowed his head shortly in irreverent gratitude before turning away from the trysting couple.

"Kakashi," Sasuke added, as if in afterthought, to his retreating back, "if you disturb me again, I will kill you."

Obligate threat issued, the conflict ended as quietly as it had begun. Kakashi let his long strides carry him serenely out of the house.

Once outside, he headed towards Pakkun, who had collected what he had been instructed to find. "Hey."

"You idiot!" Sakura shot back, her bag swinging in her hands as she spun to face him, but her expression was highly concerned. "You're okay?" she asked rapidly, letting her eyes scan him quickly for any injuries. "There wasn't a fight? He didn't swear revenge? He likes to do that and he's quite serious about it, you know."

With the last comment, he chuckled aloud and watched her face harden.

"You should have told me you were going to do something foolish!" Sakura added petulantly, a flush of anger coming to her cheeks.

"You would have tried to stop me." It was a reasonable rejoinder, and the soon to be divorced young woman could only press her lips together in irritation at a point well made. "Calm down. It worked." He had planned it for some time, truth be told, after Pakkun's nose had sniffed out the truth about the dark haired woman that visited the Uchiha compound. He'd timed his arrival as best he could for the most inopportune moment for Sasuke, a ninja should always take every advantage and a distraction of that magnitude would always work in his favor, but it also let Kakashi reap some small vengeance. He didn't think that Sakura would appreciate her new lover and her husband starting a fight, not when between them they would wreak havoc on the village and it's people, and Kakashi agreed with her. But he wanted Sasuke to know that there were people who loved Sakura, that would intervene and speak up, those with the ability to, well, make things uncomfortable for Sasuke if he tried to hurt her again.

"By some miracle," Sakura muttered back, but her shoulders visibly relaxed as part of the tension flowed away. And as he gazed at her, Kakashi hoped she understood that any risk he undertook on her behalf was worth it to him. That she was worth it all and more.

From below them, a dry voice interrupted their semi-argument. "Do you think we could leave now?" Pakkun was looking up at his master with as close an expression to bored as the dog could get. "This isn't the friendliest place to talk."

Kakashi gestured to the wooden door on the fence of the compound, then casually leaned an elbow in Sakura's direction. With a huff and an exasperated roll of the eyes, she took it, and they retraced the path that the man beside her had fairly sprinted not even half an hour ago.

"Are you glad I went?" he asked quietly as they turned on to the last block before his apartment.

In reply, she simply nodded with a content sigh, her smile purely peaceful for the first time since he had watched her sleep curled up on his table, and Kakashi knew that he had been right without a doubt, even if this little queen consorted with only his heart and ruled only those three rooms that he paid monthly for.

The former Uchiha possessions were just happier with him.


End file.
